Tuesday, May 24, 2016

I think I'm on a roll with starting and finishing projects. This week, I finished the latest project from the Mary Maxim's Knit Club of the Month. I'm sure my gauge was off on this one. Last week, I mentioned that the yarn was slipping quite a bit on the plastic needles. I managed to keep all of the stitches in tact, but they were definitely more loosy-goosy that normal. As a result, I didn't quite have enough yarn to finish it as written. That's okay because luckily I recognized that with a 2-3 rows to go and ended it early. The project picture showed a scarf with a fringe, but I didn't like the fringe and definitely wouldn't have added it, so it's all good. The best part is that it's big enough to wear as a small shawl!!!! Like I need another shawl. ;) Here's the finished piece:

After that piece was complete, I started one of the shawls kits I purchased a few weeks ago at my local yarn store. This one is Clapotis from ravelry.com. The pattern is free (!!!) and the shawl is knit on the diagonal. That's hard to see at the moment. It can also be worn as a scarf. Like I need another scarf. ;) Here's what it looks like so far:

The pattern is quite monotonous and filled with "knit through back of loop" (k tbl) stitches. I hope I haven't missed one or ten. It's a dropped stitch kind of thing, so I'm afraid if I have made a mistake somewhere, the whole thing is going to fall apart went I start the dropping part. Fingers crossed!

Last week, I mentioned that my local yarn store had a sidewalk sale with yarns 50% off. Here's what I added to my stash:

The light greenish-goldish donut balls (middle right of the photo) are my favourite. Merino wool/silk mix. So soft, so luxurious, soooooo expensive. Since I didn't have any idea of what I'd make with it, I grabbed all they had of that colour. It's probably enough for several projects. What was I thinking.

With 3 acres of yard to care for, we always have yard work that needs doing, but so far it hasn't interfered with my knitting too much. I hope that trend continues. This week coming week I'm going to continue on the Clapotis shawl.

Needlework Tuesday is hosted by Heather over at Books and Quilts. If you'd done any crafting this week that you'd like to share with others, please head over to Heather's blog and use the Mr. Linky to link up your post, so others can enjoy your creations.

Wednesday, May 18, 2016

This week I concentrated most of my knitting efforts into continuing the rainbow shawl (Celadon from ravelry.com.) I'm glad to report that I finished it. Yippee!!! I wasn't sure I was going to have enough yarn to continue my symmetrical pattern, but I luckily I did. Here's a shot of the finished piece:

This thing is massive compared to other shawls I've made. If I don't wrap it around myself, it goes down to my knees. I wasn't sure if I was going to like it because it's so different from the original pattern and colouring, but it's growing on me. Even though it's cotton, I think it's going to keep me warm on those cool spring/fall/winter nights. I still have some yarn leftover to make a small scarf, hat and/or fingerless mitts. Maybe all three!

After I finished the wrap, I worked on the May project, a "fashion" scarf, from the Mary Maxim's Knit Club of the Month. After "practicing" (as Heather would say) the first 6 rows a dozen times or so, I finally made some headway on it. Instead of trying to figure out the "selvage" stitch, I just did a slip stitch at the beginning of the right-side row. I think it's working out. Here's what it looks like so far:

The yarn isn't as bad to work with as I first thought. It's still slipping on the plastic needles, but so far I've been able to keep it under control. I mentioned last week that I haven't worked with tape-type yarns all that much, but since this one is quite narrow and the needles are quite large (12mm), I'm not too worried about twisting the tape. It's knitting up pretty much like any other loosely knit, bulky yarn would. That's a good thing.

I made one mistake in the piece, but instead of ripping back a number of rows, I knitted to the spot, ripped out the one stitch all the way down, fixed the problem, then knit it back up. A yarn over (yo) was involved, so it was a little more tricky than just knitting or purling. It was the first time I attempted something like this and in the end it was quite easy to do. Go me!

Even though it's a simple enough pattern, it's not that well written. Since the company is based in Germany, I think it might be a translation thing. I wouldn't recommend it for beginners.

Lastly, my local yarn store may or may not have had a continuation of their sidewalk sale....50% off! And I may or may not have spent another pile of money on some more luxurious (i.e. expensive) yarn. My husband may or may not have aided and abetted me by picking out some more sock yarn. Next week, I may or may not post some photos. ;)

This week coming week I'm going to continue to work on the scarf from Mary Maxim.

Needlework Tuesday is hosted by Heather over at Books and Quilts. If you'd done any crafting this week that you'd like to share with others, please head over to Heather's blog and use the Mr. Linky to link up your post, so others can enjoy your creations.

Tuesday, May 10, 2016

I've really only been knitting one project these past two weeks: the rainbow shawl (Celadon from ravelry.com.) I'm adding more stripes than the pattern calls for because I'm trying to use up some leftover yarn. I sort of mapped out a symmetrical pattern on paper according to how much yarn I thought I had leftover, but now I'm wishing I had included less symmetry and more randomness to the stripes. I am close to the end on some colours, so I'll have to see what happens this week.

It's a little misshapen at the moment, but I'll fix that when I block it. I forgot to mention that this shawl is worked side-to-side rather than top down as some other shawls are. Eagle-eyed Heather picked up on that and alluded to it in the comments last week.

A new project from the Mary Maxim's Knit Club of the Month showed up this week. The project is a fashion scarf pictured on the yarn label below. I'm really on the fence about it. The yarn, Schachenmayr's Batiko Sun, is a slippery tape type yarn that I'm not used to working with. While I appreciate that the required needles (12mm, circular) were included in the shipment, they are plastic and the yarn is slipping quite a bit on them. Had I purchased my own, I probably would have opted for bamboo/wooden ones.

Also, I've knit the first several rows a number of times, but I'm not happy with the result. For one thing, I've never heard of the "selvage" stitch and I'm finding it challenging. I think it might be a British/European thing. I Googled it and tried what they suggested, but it didn't quite work out right. I'll probably just slip the first stitch of every row and call it done. However, any suggestions or links to methods that you know work would be much appreciated.

I've decided that a girl can never have too many shawls or wraps. Since my local yarn store had a sale (15% off shawl yarn) for Mother's Day as well as a sidewalk sale with yarns 40% off, I decided that even though I'm not a Mommy I deserved a treat. Actually, I had to visit twice because there was some yardage confusion/sticker price confusion with the store-assembled kits I bought. It ended up costing me more than I expected to spend (and more than the sticker price), but it was straightened out by the helpful staff and I have enough yarn to keep me busy through the whole summer (if I have time to knit) and quite possibly fall and winter. For now, here's a shot of the yarn I purchased on the weekend:

The 5 balls of sock yarn (top of photo) were 40% off at the sidewalk sale. I won't need it all for the shawl I have in mind, but I figured at that price my stash could use some fattening. Also, since I haven't purchased the pattern yet, I reserve the right to change my mind and make something else. As I start work on these, I'll link to the patterns and provide better photos of the yarn.

This week I'm going to continue to work on the rainbow shawl as well as the new Mary Maxim project.

Needlework Tuesday is hosted by Heather over at Books and Quilts. If you'd done any crafting this week that you'd like to share with others, please head over to Heather's blog and use the Mr. Linky to link up your post, so others can enjoy your creations.

Wednesday, May 4, 2016

Star Wars: The Force Awakens - The Visual Dictionary features characters, weapons, tools, and locations from the movie.

This is such an awesome book. As with other DK visual dictionaries, it's so beautifully presented. The book concentrates on the main characters (or groups of characters) and major locations. Each one is featured on a 2- or sometimes 4-page spread with tons of labelled/annotated photos and interesting and informative text . Many of the photos are large enough to really see the fine details.

Within the character and location pages, there's also information and photos of the tools, weapons and a few of the vessels from the movie. It's great that each of these is also labelled and/or explained further.

My favourite character photos are the dynamic ones. That is, the ones where they are doing something. For example: Kylo Ren's fighting pose with his plasma blade ligthsaber, and Rey with her quarterstaff in a defensive position. Both of these are so cool. Of course, sometimes it's just easier to see the details when the person is just standing there, so it's great that there's also plenty of those types of photos as well.

This book has so much information that each time I pick it up I see something I missed the first time I looked at it. I especially love that the photos with labels start on page one and continue right until the very last page.

It's fun to page through the book, but for those looking for something specific the book also has a table of contents as well as an adequate index.

By the way, I saw the movie and loved it.

Highly recommended for Star Wars fans.

For more Star Wars books from DK and for a downloadable activity kit, please see DK's website.

For more information about this book and/or a quick peek inside, please visit Amazon's website.